Pork
Revelry Bacon
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Preparation
5 days
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Cook Time
4 hours
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Serves
4 people
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Difficulty
10/10 (but so worth it)
Behind the Recipe
It’ll Make You Everyone’s Best Friend
Offering someone an ordinary piece of bacon is a pretty cool move. But offering someone a slice of your home-smoked Revelry Bacon that you went out and bought specific pellet chips for? That, my friend, makes you a legend. It’s that legit.
Slice it thick, eat it plain, pair it with eggs, or wrap filets. Chop it up, toss it with salad, and carbonara, it’s all fantastic. This is the rare kind of food you revel in and rave about with friends. Make no mistake, there’s nothing wrong with pre-packaged bacon, but you could do so much better. Your guests deserve so much better. So make your shopping list and go. Revelry Bacon simply cannot wait.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- For the Brine
- 3.8 liters of water
- 1 cup of coarse kosher salt
- ⅔ cup of sugar
- 6 juniper berries, crushed
- 1 tablespoon of pink curing salt
- 2 teaspoons of whole black peppercorns
- 2 teaspoons of ground coriander
- 2 teaspoons of garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon of celery seeds
- For the Rub
- 3 tablespoons of coriander seeds
- 2 tablespoons of black peppercorns
- 1 tablespoon of white peppercorns
- 2 tablespoons of yellow mustard seeds
- 8 cloves of garlic, minced
- 5 tablespoons of coarse kosher salt
- 3 tablespoons of dark brown sugar
- 5 tablespoons of paprika
- The Cut
- 1 large piece of pork belly about 2.5 kg
Preparation
- 5 days before the braai, make your brine by bringing 2 liters of water to a boil in a large pot. Add all of the brine ingredients listed above and stir until the salt and sugar dissolves.
- Add 1.9 liters of ice water to cool the brine, then refrigerate until chilled.
- Using a meat injector, inject the chilled brine throughout the pork belly, using 1-2 cups.
- Submerge pork belly in remaining brine, cover, and refrigerate.
- After 3 days in the fridge, re-inject the pork belly and brine for an additional 2 days. It’s a long time to wait, but oh man is Revelry Bacon worth it!
- After a total of 5 days, remove the pork belly from the brine, rinse with cold water, and drain.
- Place pork belly on a wire rack over a sheet pan and let dry in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
- To make the rub, place your coriander, black and white peppercorns, and mustard seed in a spice mill or mortar and grind until coarse.
- Work in the remaining ingredients, then generously coat your pork belly on the top, bottom, and sides with the rub.
- All your hard work is about to pay dividends in flavor. Grab that beautiful hunk of meat and head outside to the Pellet grill.
Cooking Instructions
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1
Using your Nexgrill App set the cooking method to smoke at 95°C, this is the sweet spot. Your probe temperature should be set to 71°C.
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2
Now here’s the really cool part. Based on how you want your bacon to taste, you can use different types of wood pellets that will infuse your pork belly with unique, smoky flavour profiles. For example:
- Applewood wood pellets will give you a classic, mellow, apple-flavored bacon.
- Hickory wood pellets will result in sweet but robust bacon.
- Cherry wood pellets, on the other hand, offer sweetness with a hint of tartness.
- Pecan wood pellets offer a nuttier crisp if you’re in the mood for something different.
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3
Smoke the pork belly for about 4 hours, or until the internal temperature reaches 71°C. Keep an eye on your pellets and add more when necessary to keep the inside of your Pellet grill nice and smoky.
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4
Once cooked, transfer the pork belly to a clean wire rack over a sheet pan and let cool to room temperature before transferring to the fridge.
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5
Slice thinly and treat like normal bacon. Fry it on your stove top. Bake it in the oven. Cook it over a campfire. Go crazy!
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6
Tightly wrap remaining pork belly in plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze for later use.
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